


The Evil Exes Club

by thejollyape



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Ex-Girlfriends, F/F, Gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:09:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejollyape/pseuds/thejollyape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title should be pretty self-explanatory. If not, case!fic, but with a heavy emphasis on Wayhaught and Wynonna. Slightly tongue-in-cheek to keep with the feel of the show. Takes place an unspecified number of months after the season one finale, builds more on the mythology we've had a season to become familiar with, rather than delving into all the new stuff that was introduced in the finale.</p><p>Basically I like the show, I like the pairing, I don't want to wait for season two, so I write my own version, but with more lesbians. Yes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I keep with the show. That means snark, gore and lesbian content. If any of those things rub you the wrong way then you shouldn't be here in the first place.

The rain drizzles down across the windshield of a rented car, inside of it a blonde woman, currently blonde at least, sits with an annoyed look on her face, her eyes keep flicking between the dreary wet outside and shoots angry stares down at the phone in her hand, seemingly faulting it for the low bars of reception. Patsy Cline’s voice rides across the car’s radio and mixes with the hum of the windscreen wipers and the seemingly neverending rain, creating an eerie isolating small-town soundtrack. The woman sighs in frustration and ducks her head to look out at the red neon light indicating the parking lot she’s currently idling in belongs to Ghost River Motel, beneath it a smaller sign battered by the rain swings back and forth, promising both WiFi and HBO, neither making it appear any more inviting.

“If I die here I swear I’ll haunt Nic’s ass until hell freezes over,” she tells the empty car. With one more sigh, this one more defeated, she pulls the keys out of the ignition and throws her phone in her purse and quickly makes a dash for the Reception. 

***

“Wave, have you seen my work boots?” Nicole asks as she’s moving around shoes and non-descript boxes in the only and very crowded closet of her apartment, digging through two pair of cowboy boots she’s pretty sure she’s never even seen before. Untangling them from what looks like Christmas tinsel before continuing her search for the elusive work boots.

An unintelligible mumbling comes as a muffled reply from the bathroom. 

“What was that?” she wonders, dropping the tinsel mess back into the closet and poking her head into the bathroom instead. 

Waverly unceremoniously spits the toothpaste into the sink, a small minty white moustache remains on her face, “In the kitchen cupboard”.

“Thanks,” Nicole says and hurries into the kitchen, not stopping until she’s got her hand on the cupboard door. “Why are my boots in the kitchen cupboard?” she hollers back through the apartment, but without waiting for a reply before opening the door and finding them stored behind a massive sack of salt and two bottles of some weird imported liquor. 

“You must have stepped in catnip, or something, Calamity wouldn’t leave them alone last night,” Waverly explains as she joins Nicole in the kitchen, now toothpaste free and almost ready for the new day, almost.

Nicole gently sniffs the shoes and shrugs before she starts putting them on, frowning as she realises the end of one of the laces is frayed and bear the telltale marks of cat claws and teeth. Waverly makes her way over to the coffee machine and pulls down a travel cup from shelf above it, pouring herself the energy she knew she was going to need in order to sit through another of Dolls unofficial official BBD meetings. Meetings that seemed to happen regularly the past couple of months and always seemed to contain the same message of “new management, keep your heads down, don’t make ripples, get shit done”. Which wasn’t really much of a change all things considered, and if you’d sat through one of them you’d sat through all of them, as far as Waverly was concerned.

“You ready to go?” Nicole asks and breaks Waverly out of her train of still somewhat sleepy thought. 

“Sure,” she replies with a small smile and makes sure to tighten the cap carefully before dumping the travel mug in her bag, alongside three notebooks and two crusty looking hardbacks. She looks back up again, only to realise Nicole has taken two steps in her direction and is now very much invading her personal space, which comes as a very pleasant surprise.

“Good morning by the way,” Nicole says with a dorky smile on her lips, gently letting her fingers caress Waverly’s jaw before angling her face upwards. Waverly smiles into the kiss, one that mostly just tastes of mint, but still manages to be incredibly sweet. “Morning to you too,” she replies once they part, the dorky smile now reflected on her lips as well. Now very much awake.

***

“Where’s tall ginger and lesbian?” Wynonna ask as she falls back into one of the rickety chairs with an oomph. She starts taking off her sunglasses, but quickly changes her mind when her eyes are exposed to the stark shine of the overhead lights. The glasses along with her shoulders slump back down into her default position, slouchy and grouchy.

“Nedley grabbed her as soon as we walked through the door,” Waverly replies and takes a seat next to her sister, unable to withstand the temptation of slamming her book bag down on the table in front of them.

“Brat.” Wynonna winces and the slouch seems to expand and begins to occupy the air around her, somehow, through Wynonna’s own brand of ill-tempered magic. 

Waverly pretends she can’t hear her, but can’t help a pleased grin from appearing. “So where’s Dolls?”

“How should I know?” The grouch is now accompanied by a certain sharpness in Wynonna’s voice, one that doesn’t pass Waverly by.

“I assumed…” Waverly began, but wasn’t allowed to finish.

“Don’t assume. Assuming kills puppies and spreads ebola.” Without further explanation Wynonna grabs hold of Waverly’s bag and starts rummaging through it. Her mood not lightening until she greedily grabs hold of the coffee, and then only marginally. “Bada bing!” 

“Hey!” Waverly complains, futily as her sister shamelessly sips her coffee. 

Wynonna grimaces a little around the first mouthful of the warm liquid. “You need to get your girlfriend to stop buying this walnutty shit. Coffee isn’t supposed to taste like nuts, it’s supposed to be bitter and awful and with enough caffeine to give you the jitters.”

“Or you could bring your own.”

Wynonna replies in the form of a glare, a glare that says everything that needs to be said on that topic, which is “fuck no”.

Dolls takes that moment to walk through the door, coming to a stop with his hand still on the doorknob. “Give your sister her coffee back and lets go,” he tells them without as much as a greeting. “We’ve got work. A body down by Joshua Creek.” He lets go of the door and signals them to follow, when they’re not quick enough onto their feet he adds a, “Let’s go, ladies, today.”

Wynonna groans, audibly, and doesn’t so much stand up as controllably fall upwards and sideways until suddenly she’s in an upright position with both her legs and feet under her. Waverly takes the moment to steal her mug back and hurries after Dolls. Immediately smiling a little brighter for having dodged the bullet of another dreary unproductive meeting, then as quickly scolding her features when she realises it’s at the expense of a dead person. She’s not the person to….but almost worth it. Not really, but those meetings...no, fresh air much better. Or so she thought.

***

Nicole stands at a respectable distance from the corpse, allowing the crime scene people to do their thing, but also because she really does not feel the need to be any closer to the half-way eviscerated man. The stench alone from the decaying body and rats nest of tangled guts torn out and spread across the man’s belly like the most grotesque of hula hoops was enough to make her regret she had dinner last night, and forever grateful she hadn’t had the chance to get breakfast that morning. 

“It’s going to be another one of those, isn’t it!?” She finally breaks the silence and glances over at Nedley whose face is a mask of green-tinged stone under the brim of his hat.

“Nicole, don’t start,” he warns her.

She sighs, but decides this isn’t the moment to get into it again. Both her and Nedley knew perfectly well from first-hand experience what kind of weird shit went down in Purgatory, weird shit that went far beyond the label of “quirky”, but Nedley still refused to speak of it aloud. “Have you called Dolls?”

“They’re on their way.” He absently pulls at the brim of his Stetson, a habit Nicole quickly learnt meant he was considering his next move. “Write it up, the basics, then hand it over,” he tells her and lets his arm fall to his side.

“Sir-” she begins, full of objections. She wants to tell him, not for the first time, that it’s about time the Sheriff’s department stopped hiding their head in the sand and sweep the issue under the rug of the Black Badge Division. Nothing against the organisation, well to be fair, Nicole did have a lot of concerns with them, she’d yet to forgive them the way they acted in the aftermath of Willa’s death and the so called “black goo incident”. Thanks to those trigger-happy bureaucratic bastards she almost lost Waverly. But that was in the past now, she told herself, not really buying it, but still repeating it to herself like a mantra. But besides that point, Black Badge were not the ones on the ground in Purgatory, they weren’t the ones with the direct responsibility to protect and serve this supernatural, but sleepy small town. No, that was their responsibility, hers, Nedley’s, and they needed to start taking that more serious. So Revenants and hell-scum existed, okay then, then they had to add that to the big picture and make sure Purgatory was a safe and lawful place despite of curses, demons and witches. She never came further than the first syllable in Revenant before Nedley shut her down and told her to let sleeping dogs lie. She glances at him again, reading the harsh lines around his mouth and the distant look in his eyes, yeah this isn’t the time she’ll get any further. “Yes, sir.”

***

Nicole puts her regulation notepad back into her pocket as she comes walking up to the incline towards the road above the creek, in her mind going over the statement of Gary Fischer who had the unfortunate luck of finding the body earlier that morning when he was out walking his dog. The creek is part of a recreation area, not in any way hidden, but far from well-used at this time of year. Not that she doubted his story, no Gary was far too traumatized to have made it up or been involved. The look in his eyes told her he wasn’t going to see a full night’s sleep in many weeks to come. 

She lifts her gaze and realises another couple of cars had joined the squad car and morgue van at the parking lot. Which would explain why she thought she’d heard Wynonna’s voice hollering earlier when she’d taken Gary aside to talk him through the incident. But she’s taken by surprise when she sees a very familiar red Jeep and an even more familiar figure sitting in the passenger seat with their feet dangling in the air. The morning light is just crisp enough to make the contrast between the bright red car and Waverly’s green coat stand out starkly against a landscape that was slowly winding down preparing itself for winter. It became the one brightness in a soon to be slumbering scenery. It was an incredibly beautiful picture, until Nicole realised that the colour on Waverly’s face was far too pale to be beautiful. She quickens her steps to get closer.

“You okay?” she asks with concern when she’s a few feet away from the car.

Waverly looks up at her with a slight shimmer in her eyes, her face as pale as can be, except for her lips that are the kind of red no lipstick can create, instead is the result of having wiped at your mouth far too many times.

“I puked,” she admits with a solemn expression. “Twice.”

Stopping in front of her, Nicole stands close enough to feel the press of Waverly’s shins against her thighs, her hands coming down to rest on Waverly’s thighs. They meet each other’s eyes, but Nicole doesn’t reply, merely lets her thumbs play comforting circles across the fabric of Waverly’s trousers. There’s a part of Nicole that wishes she could protect her girlfriend from this, tell her she has no right to be at a crime scene, definitely not one as gruesome as this. Then reality comes knocking and even though she’d do anything in her power to keep Waverly safe, there’s no need to protect her from anything. If she only has love to fuel her the youngest Earp was probably the fiercest citizen Purgatory had to offer. And that Nicole could do, offer the love part. 

“That was gross,” Waverly finally says breaking the silence between them. She takes a deep breath, in and out through her nose.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Nicole agrees. “One of yours?” 

“Probably,” she says looking over the redhead’s shoulder in the direction of the creek. “Not that I’d know in between all the puking, but Dolls seem to think so.” She looks back at Nicole and gives a faint smile void of any real happiness.

“Hey-” 

The word seems to hang in the air, but is ungracefully cut down as Wynonna comes up from the creek and exclaims, “Who’s had breakfast?” Waverly gives her a tightlipped glare. “Who wants second breakfast?” she adds with a shit-eating grin.

***

“Any visible marks on the body?” Waverly asks as they’re once again back at the Sheriff’s Station, huddled around the rectangular table that’s somehow become the core of their local branch of the Black Badge Division.

“You mean besides someone playing zombie with his intestine?” Wynonna cuts in and un-squints her eyes as she looks up from the book in front of her.

“Besides that,” Waverly replies and rolls her eyes, the colour has finally returned to her cheeks and the worst shock of the morning seems to have washed out of her system with a third cup of coffee.

“The Coroner is working on the body, we probably won’t have anything until tomorrow at the earliest,” Dolls informs them. He stretches his arms over his head and loudly cracks his neck.

“That’s disgusting,” Wynonna tells him, but stretches her own back in response. 

“Anything that seems familiar?” Dolls directs the question at Waverly, pointedly ignoring the other Earp.

“I can’t think of any Revenants that liked to play the walking dead,” she sighs, but a frown plays across her brow as a certain sense of familiarity is sparked. “But there is something…” She gets up and heads over to the one corner of the room that’s been transformed into a makeshift library, where she starts moving books around from one massive pile to another.

With a gentle knock Nicole opens their door with one hand while trying to secure her radio to her jacket with the other. “Hey. They called down from the Motel, apparently they’ve got a missing guest. Checked in four days ago, paid up front, but when check-out came along they’re gone, but all of their belongings are still in their room and the car they registered is still parked out front.”

“We’ll meet you there, Deputy.” Dolls is immediately on his feet.

“If we leave now they’ll find her mummified corpse trapped under those books in three months,” Wynonna tells Dolls as she nods in Waverly’s direction. He shakes his head and reaches over to grab hold of his gun holster hanging off the chair next to him. “Waverly?”

“I heard you, very funny,” she says as she skims through one of the books. “You go, I just need to check something.” She doesn’t as much as look up and the others take that as their cue to get going.

***

“That’s-” Waverly rotates the book in front of her to get a better look at the illustration-”icky. But impressively detailed.” 

Images of that morning parade through her mind, but she realises it wasn’t so much the gruesome picture of the murder scene that turned her stomach as it was the smell. That sickly sweet smell of decay so strong it feels like it’ll imprint in your nostrils forever. She reaches over for her coffee to replace the sense memory teasing her nose and threatening to make her feel sick again. Only to discover the only thing left in her cup is the dregs.

“I guess it’s cop shop coffee time,” she says in a lilting voice to no one but herself and her books. Getting to her feet she remembers that her phone kept chiming when she was too busy reading to pay it any more attention. With phone and coffee cup in hand she ventures out into the station, letting memory guide her step as she replies to her sister’s messages.

“Excuse me!” A voice calls out and pulls Waverly’s attention from the phone, looking up with a confused smile she finds a stranger standing in the reception area void of the on-call Duty Officer. A well-dressed blonde stranger whose immediate demeanour somehow reminds Waverly of Constance is standing in front of the worn counter in place to separate the public from the personnel. Maybe it’s the frosty look in her eyes, or simply the way she carries herself, but everything about this woman screams big city, judgemental and maybe just a tad evil. Waverly realises the hypocrisy in her own snap judgement and tries to shake it off with another smile, this one aimed directly at the woman.

“Can I help you?” Waverly asks and tries to keep her tone light and her body language as open as possible.

“You work here?” the woman questions and lets her gaze drift up and down Waverly in a way that makes Waverly decide her snap judgement was just fine. 

“Yes,” she replies, fighting the urge to narrow her eyes. 

“You’re a police officer?” The stranger raises one eyebrow and gives Waverly a look of disbelief.

“Well no.”

The woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other and places her hand on her hip, levelling an annoyed look at Waverly. “Which is it?”

“I consult.” Waverly straightened her back and couldn’t help the automatic response of crossing her arms over her chest defensively, which ended up being incredibly awkward with cup in one hand and phone in the other.

“What could a place like this possibly need a consultant for?!” The question clearly meant as an insult rather than something warranting an answer. This time Waverly’s eyes did narrow noticeably. “No offence,” the woman adds, but without even an ounce of sincerity. 

“Can I help you?” Waverly repeats her earlier question, leaving out the “bitch” that’s on the tip of her tongue.

“I’m looking for an officer,” she admits and starts rummaging through her purse, pulling out a small notebook and a pen. “Nicole Haught.”

Waverly can’t keep the shock and suspicion from her face. “What do you want with Nicole?”

The woman pulls her own version of surprise and her eyes suddenly become a little bit softer, more approachable. “You know Nic?”

Waverly opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted as Chrissy walks into the station and unceremoniously slips behind the counter. “Hi, Waves. Is dad in?”

“No...yes.”

“He is?”

“You do?”

“Wait.” Waverly holds up her hands, one at each woman in front of her. “Yes, I know her.” She lowers one arm and turns around to look at Chrissy next. “No, I think he left with Nicole.” She lowers her other arm to and sighs audibly.

“Look, I’m not really in the mood for small town shenanigans, so could you just leave this note for Nic when she gets back.” She reaches over the counter and offers Waverly a piece from out of her notebook, with what’s clearly a telephone number scribbled across it and signed with flourishing, “Love, CC”. “And tell her to call me.”

Both Waverly and Chrissy’s eyebrows perform an almost synchronised dance in which they compete in how high they can arch. Chrissy recovers first and looks over at Waverly, trying to gauge if she should go into protective best friend mode or not. Waverly’s nostrils flare for a second, but she plays it off with a tight smile. “And you would be?”

“Tell her Claire was here. She knows who I am and she’s going to want to call me,” she says with a confident smile and turns around to leave without any further explanation. 

“Who is she? And do I need to beat her up?” Chrissy asks Waverly once the other woman is out of earshot. “Or do I need to beat Nicole up? I’ll do my best to do both if you need me to,” she says somewhat insecure, but in perfect honesty. 

***

“I’ll quarter her,” Wynonna decides. “Pull out her nails first. Cut her tongue out. Then quarter her and feed her to Dunhams’ hogs. Say the word and then we’ll never talk about it again.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little rash,” Waverly replies, fiddling with the piece of paper in front of her, the one that contains the telephone number to the mysterious Claire who thinks it’s appropriate to sign things with Love and just a CC. Despite admonishing her sister Waverly has a deep frown on her face and throws the note on the table with disdain. 

“Only once, and turned out I had nothing to worry about, it was just the heat and the friction.”

Waverly shakes her head and gives her sister a crooked smile. At the same time they hear a knock on the front door, followed by a squeak as the tired hinges swing open. “Anyone home?” Nicole hollers from the front room and they share a look as they hear how she stamps her boots and wrestles out of her jacket.

“One word,” Wynonna reminds her.

Nicole finally steps into the kitchen with a smile for Wynonna and then a soft kiss on the exposed skin of Waverly’s neck, frowning a little as she feels her girlfriend stiffen at the contact. “Everything okay?” she asks, looking from Waverly who doesn’t meet her eye to Wynonna who shoots her a “I’ll kill you slowly and into many parts” look, and back at Waverly again. “What’s wrong?”

With the grace of a starved predator Wynonna gets up and stalks over to Nicole, intently keeping eye-contact with her prey. “Remember that talk we had,” she says and tilts her head to the side and pokes Nicole deftly in the sternum. 

Nicole frowns and tries to sort through the many talks Wynonna has had with her, seeing how there is a new one each week there are a lot of them to go through. She quickly puts aside the talks about “if you come visit you must water the plants” and “Sundays are no pants day so suit yourself”. Eventually landing on what to her seems most plausible, “Look is this about the no sex in the kitchen, because this isn’t-”

“Don’t play cute, Haught.” Wynonna pokes her once more.

“Stop it! What’s with you Earps and bruising my chestbone?!” Nicole grabs hold of Wynonna’s hand as it goes in for another poke. 

“Wynonna,” Waverly suddenly chimes in, through the tone of her voice warning her sister to back down. “You had a visitor down at the station earlier today,” she continues now aimed at her girlfriend. “A Claire with no last name, said she knows you.”

“Claire?” Nicole asks in confusion. Waverly holds out the piece of paper with the telephone number on for her to see. Reacting to the very familiar handwriting Nicole lets go of Wyonna’s hand and the confusion becomes mixed with annoyance. “That’s...I don’t…” 

Wynonna stabs her once more in the chest for good measure, this time Nicole seems unaware, before moving over to the kitchen cupboard, wordlessly pulling out glasses and a bottle.

“You sure?” Nicole asks as she drops down in the seat next to Waverly, the piece of paper still in her hand, because even though she recognises the handwriting very well she doesn’t quite believe it.

“Blonde, a look in her eyes that’ll scare children, pretty,” Waverly studies Nicole’s face intently as she adds the last descriptor.

“That does sound like Claire,” Nicole admits and gets a slap over the head as Wynonna walks past her. 

“I swear to God, Haught, if you’ve been two-timing on my baby sister they’ll never find what’s left of you,” Wynonna warns as she slams down the bottle of tequila on the table. 

“What?” Nicole chokes out. Waverly looks at her with an insecure gleam in her eyes. “No! No,” she shakes her head and scrunches her nose as if it’s suddenly detected a really bad smell. “Hell no.”

Waverly visibly relaxes at her reaction, and the hard insecure gleam suddenly turns towards curiosity. 

“I have no idea what she’d be doing here, but she’s my Ex,” Nicole says turning the paper over as if there’d be something on the back of it that’d make all of it turn into sense.

“Your ex-girlfriend?” a surprised Waverly asks for confirmation, sitting up straighter. 

“Yes,” she replies and looks over at Waverly in confusion. “What would she be doing here?”

“You tell me,” Waverly retorts, not with anger, but an undeniably caustic tone. “She showed up at the Station when you guys were out and wanted to see you. She handed that over and told us you would want to call her.”

“But why would she be here?” Nicole shakes her head, no that didn’t sound right. First of all she could never in a million years imagine her ex-girlfriend in Purgatory, she wasn’t the kind of woman who could live without the smog of a big city. Neither was their break-up amicable enough that Claire would pop up unexpected and want to hang out. They were never really friends to begin with, much less after things ended. “This doesn’t make sense.” Subconsciously Nicole lets her hand rest on Waverly’s thigh, for the second time that day caressing comforting circles across the fabric, clinging to the familiar sensation of the warm skin beneath, this time however, for her own benefit.

“Maybe you should call her?” Waverly suggests, reaching down to still Nicole’s fingers, entwining them with hers instead, giving a reassuring squeeze.

Nicole shakes her head and opens her mouth a couple of times, but no real reply seems forthcoming. Wynonna helpfully slides a glass of tequila across the table, closing her eyes and give an encouraging nod. “Do I have to?” Nicole whines and it’s a bit uncertain if she’s referring to the tequila or the phone call. 

***

Later on the couple find themselves alone, Wynonna having slunk off with the bottle when Nicole refused to give any juicy details about the Ex or the break-up. Despite Wynonna’s lack of boundaries Nicole was a firm believer in keeping some things from your girlfriend’s sister, she’d gladly tell Waverly anything she wanted to know, but not in front of Wynonna. There was just a line there somewhere, one she wasn't interested in smudging. 

“I need to go home,” Nicole tells Waverly sighing deeply, feeling so done with the day that she couldn’t express it any other way. “Calamity,” she clarifies with a shrug.

“Just give me a minute, I need to get some books from my room,” Waverly replies and turns towards the stairs.

Nicole grabs hold of the sleeve of her shirt. “Maybe you should stay here.”

Waverly gives her a hurt look. “You don’t want me to stay over?”

“No! That’s not what I meant.” Nicole shakes her head emphatically. “I was thinking with this new Revenant in town- you’d be so much safer here.”

Waverly arches one eyebrow and gives her a look of utter disbelief. “Do you really think some sicko Revenant is gonna keep me from sleeping with my girlfriend?!”

All these months together and Nicole still got a nice flush of red to her cheeks when Waverly called her her girlfriend. She moves her hand from Waverly’s sleeve to her waist, pulling her closer, gently nudging Wave’s cheek with her nose before finding her lips. Waverly’s hand automatically finds Nicole’s neck and pulls her down, deepening the kiss instinctively. It would have been a very sweet moment too had it not been interrupted by a flying toy smurf that hits Nicole square on the butt and force them apart.

“Damnit, Haught! When are you going to start respecting the talks!” Wynonna shouts from the second floor before disappearing again.

“I was gonna suggest we get Calamity and stay here for a few days,” Nicole says, her pupils still wide, equal parts due to the darkness and the rush of Waverly’s lips on hers. “But then there’s that.” She gives a nod in the direction the oldest Earp disappeared in.

Waverly lets her fingers caress a lazy path from Nicole’s neck down to the hollow of her throat, letting her fingers rest there as she stands on her toes to place a kiss on Nicole’s lips, a promise of what to come. “One more night at your place, then we can stay here for a few days just in case.”

“Deal,” Nicole agrees, stealing one more kiss before Waverly takes off up the stairs.


	2. Green-Eyed Monster

The dark is supposed to be scary, Waverly thinks to herself as she’s lying in bed staring out into the pitch black shadows of Nicole’s bedroom. The dark is supposed to be full of monsters. It’s supposed to be lonesome, frightening and full of anxieties. It’s the time when you cry and hide from demons and bad dreams. It’s something to avoid. To be fearful of. But she can’t feel any of those things, not even when she tries, and she tries real hard, but she just can’t. She’s warm and content beneath the blankets, the body next to her moves rhythmically in slumber, Nicole’s hand tucked inside of her own sleep shirt, resting against Waverly’s stomach, a warm anchor that makes her feel like the darkness is a good friend and a gem to treasure. As if darkness is a comfort, a bubble surrounding them, keeping them safe and close. Despite everything, despite all the dark nightmares and she has plenty of those, she realises she really, really likes the dark. At least when the dark also includes Nicole. When the dark is theirs.

The hand on Waverly’s stomach suddenly twitches as sleep leaves the person it’s attached to. Waverly smiles widely into the early morning as a not fully awake Nicole burrows her head into the crook of her neck. Sleep warm skin kisses warm skin in silence.

“Morning. “ Is whispered into the quiet. “I think.”

Waverly doesn’t reply, but she allows her own fingers to entwine with those now stroking lazy circles across her stomach. She lets the silence linger, revels in the moment, not even dreading the alarm that’s set to go off in another twenty minutes.

***

Purgatory’s morgue is exactly what you’d expect of a morgue in Purgatory, it’s small, uninviting and older than fuck. Its linoleum floors the kind of green that’s best described as vivacious vomit and walls a colour seemingly synonymous with institutionalised defeat, or a shade of mauve malady if you’re feeling more prosaic. To make matters worse the tiny corridor outside of the morgue itself contains a glass cabinet showcasing medical instruments of times past. It’s more than enough to provide a very vivid fount of nightmare inspiration. All in all it’s the sort of place where dead dreams are reanimated and then tortured to death, again.

Wynonna finds herself relaxing on the red vinyl sofa trying not to show how uncomfortable she is, while Waverly slowly walks back and forth in the corridor reading sun faded posters and trying to make sense of the things that constitute as art, or simply attempts at covering the flaking wallpaper, trying to not show how interested she is.

“Did you get a name?” Wynonna asks as they’re lingering outside of the Coroner’s office, waiting for Dolls and the results of the autopsy, both of them having opted out of attending. Blood and guts seemed to throw themselves at the Earps as it was, no need to go inviting more of the same.

“I thought you did yesterday. I thought Dolls said you were 99% certain it was that guy missing from the motel, Carl Langham?” Waverly replies as she turns her head towards her sister and away from the poster in front of her, one promising a Slamtastic Time at the ‘89 Slam poetry festival at Barb’s Coffee & Tackle shop.

“No, dum-dum. Her name!”

“Her?” she asks play pretending she doesn’t know exactly where this conversation was going.

“You’re way too smart to play stupid. The Ex,” Wynonna insists, making sloppy air quotes around the Ex part, sort of managing to make it into an obscene gesture.

“I didn’t ask.” Waverly grimaces, but sits down next to her on the cracked vinyl seats.

Wynonna opens her mouth and shakes her head at her little sister. “You sweet summer child,” the exasperation in her voice so tangible you could dress yourself in it and it alone, without being arrested for indecent exposure. “You need to be proactive.”

“We’re not going to kill or maim Nicole’s ex.” Waverly tells her off crossing her arms on her chest.

Wynonna opens her mouth to protest, keeping it open for a while as she thinks of a new approach. “Maybe just put some honest to God Earp fear into her?” she suggests with a puppydog look. 

Waverly shakes her head no, firmly so.

“So I’m the only one that gets the shotgun treatment when they mess with your toys.”

“That was different.”

“Yeah, Champ was a chump. Nicole is-”

“No, please don’t continue,” Waverly begs closing her eyes.

“I’m not blind, I get that ladies will want to climb her like a jungle gym.” Waverly groans. “You’ve got shit taste when it comes to men, but you’re like a gay savant.” Wynonna punches Waverly on the arm to fully get her attention. “Stake a claim, protect what’s yours.”

“And how exactly will I do that if she has to arrest me?”

“Some people are into that shit.”

The door to the Coroner’s office takes that most opportune moment to swing open and Waverly is on her feet in an instant, under her breath mumbling “thank god”.

***

“Nic!”

With her gloved hand on the door handle to her squad car Nicole spins around at a voice that’s uncomfortably familiar. Fighting the sudden burst of dread that explodes through her entire body she tries to offer at least a polite smile, the resulting grimace on her lips though probably can’t be called successful. “Claire.”

The blonde comes closer, a little too close for Nicole’s comfort, and rests her hip against the car, as always immaculately dressed in a black coat and forrest green gloves. Objectively looking good, but Nicole can’t help noticing and feeling as if she looks wrong too, she doesn’t fit against the backdrop of the pot hole riddled street behind them, or against the weather worn signs of Rob’s Diner. “So you do remember,” Claire says with a smile that might be described as something in between coy and flirtatious. 

“Hard not to,” she replies with an indifferent shrug.

“I like the outfit,” Claire tells her, reaching out to touch the brim of the Stetson.

“Riiight…” Nicole draws out the word, giving a disbelieving half-smile. “Not really your style though.”

“We all make exceptions to our rules.” She drops her hand from the hat and lets it fall down to Nicole’s arm. 

Nicole gently moves her arm away. “So what brings you to Purgatory?”

“If you’d called me yesterday we could have talked about it over drinks.” She says. “That tiny confused woman at the Sheriff’s Station did give you my number, right? That woman and this town is just one ugly sweater vest away from Twin Peaks.” Nicole stiffens and gets a hard look in her eyes. “Relax, honey. I’m not insulting you, but you’ve got to admit this town is on the far end”.

The hard look remains. “I like it,” she says giving a curt nod. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Claire studies her for a moment, her green eyes showing a myriad of feelings and it’s hard to tell where one of them ends and the other begins. The emotional roulette seems to stop on something that looks like regret. “Work.” She sighs. “I’m here for work.”

Nicole frowns and tilts her head back a little, honest surprise. “Work?”

“Believe it or not, but Purgatory has an obscenely high violent crime rate. The past year alone there’s been reports of what looks like two separate serial killers and an unusually high number of missing people. I told you, Twin Peaks, but with cowboys boots instead of ugly sweaters.”

“So you’re here to do what?” Nicole asks and tries not to let the discomfort she feels make her squirm.

“Write about it. Look into what local police are doing about it. Listen to what people here have to say about it.”

Nicole frowns. 

“I thought you could be my way in.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Look, Nic,” Claire puts her hand back on Nicole’s arm. “I know we left things - raw.”

Nicole scoffs. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

Claire winces. “We all make mistakes,” she takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

Nicole looks at her for a second, silently letting her mind run through all the feelings she knows she should be feeling. It wasn’t a horrible break-up, but there had been more than one choice word exchanged. And the bottom line was that they were so different from one another, so different in their perspectives and in their wants and needs that it was never going to work. Contrasts do complement each other, but if the core is so different it repels the other person’s happiness there’s no future. Despite that it had felt like a failure to Nicole at the time, one wrought with a lot of negative feelings. But now, in this moment standing there in the middle of Purgatory, feeling the autumn cold start to nibble on cheeks and nose, hearing the train-crossing chime its warning in the distance, all that Nicole could feel was content. Not about having to deal with Claire again, but the big picture, this conversation, one that she knew she had dreaded at one point, didn’t actually take as much of a toll as she’d imagined. Here she was and there was Claire and it was, it just was, without any barrage of unhappy feelings, only thing playing was a small annoyance, because she didn’t have time for this. Not now. Not ever actually. Her mother had raised her to be polite though. “It’s all in the past,” she says and moves her arm in a dismissive gesture, making Claire’s hand fall away from her arm.

“Can we start again. Start as friends?”

“I don’t-” Nicole takes a deep breath. “We never made good friends.” The blonde studies her silently and Nicole is uncertain whether the look in those green eyes is anger or remorse, which would be another reason their relationship was never meant to be, if you can’t read the person you love you’re bound to hurt them. Nicole coughs, a nervous tick rather than a dry throat. “But if that’s what you want I’m willing to try,” she answers and realises that she does in fact mean it, to an extent at least.

“Thank you,” Claire replies smiling softly and press a brief kiss to Nicole’s cheek. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I-”

“Meet me tonight. Just drinks, just friends. We catch-up and maybe if you’re feeling generous you’ll throw me a bone or two about this place. You’ve been here for what, six months?”

“A year.” Nicole corrects.

“Yes, and don’t tell me you don’t realise something is up with this town. And I don’t mean Pancake Tuesdays at the Y.” Claire gauges her attention. “Have you heard of the Earp family?”

The discussion suddenly becomes something very different and the dread Nicole thought she’d experience just seeing Claire again suddenly attacks, but for a different reason. “You mean Wyatt Earp?”

“Did you know he’s got living relatives still in Purgatory?”

Klaxon alarms go off in Nicole’s mind and adrenaline shoots through her system and only one thing becomes relevant, to protect Waverly. “What are you angling for?” her voice is now steel, but Claire doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does she ignores the change in tone.

“I was thinking I should try to talk to them. As far as I can tell it’s two sisters and they both live right outside of town. You should read their background. Absentee mother, father and oldest sister killed before their eyes in a home invasion. It’s a Lifetime movie waiting to happen, it just needs the right spin.” The undertone being that Claire would be the one to initiate that spin.

“Don’t go there, Claire,” Nicole warns her.

“Why not?” Her curiosity now peaked.

Because if you so much as looks at Waverly the wrong way, or in any way drags up her past for your own selfish needs I will cuff you and drive you right back to Calgary without stopping once and you should be happy if that’s all I do, is what Nicole wants to reply. However she holds her tongue, tries to contain the anger in her eyes and through a clenched jaw offers a more polite, “Trust me on this, don’t.”

“Explain it to me.”

“I don’t have time,”

“Then meet me tonight. I’m buying, you’re explaining.”

Everything in Nicole’s body wants her to refuse the offer, wants to run as far from Claire as she can. But she also knows that right now she’s what’s standing between Claire and the Earps. And there’s just no way she’s going to exposed Waverly, Wynonna or even the homestead to her Ex. “Fine, I get off at six. Meet you at Shorty’s, let's say eight.”

“Perfect. I’m looking forward to it.”

***

“You did tell her you have a girlfriend, right?” Waverly asks with her arms across her chest and with a respectable amount of distance between her and Nicole.

The evening had started off good enough when Waverly and Nicole had quickly thrown some things together and corralled Calamity into her travel cage set on moving into the homestead for a few days. After all the stolen kisses while they were packing Nicole didn’t even feel too bad about being exposed to a higher dose of Wynonna than usually. No, it had actually been a really nice evening until they were done and safely on Earp land and Nicole had remarked that she’d better get going if she was going to make it to Shorty’s in time. And that’s when the evening had turned less comfortable for Nicole and progressively so with each question hurled at her from an increasingly angry Waverly.

Nicole looks puzzled. “It didn’t come up.”

“It didn’t come up?” Waverly repeats in a tone that’s borderline deadly, though if you factor in the look in her eyes it’s completely and utterly lethal.

“Not like that, it’s not-” Nicole sighs and gestures abstractly, clearly not knowing how to express herself- “Waverly, baby, trust me it’s really not that kind of going for drinks.”

“No, please, tell me all about the many ways to have drinks with your sophisticated extremely good-looking ex-girlfriend while leaving out the fact that you’ve got a current girlfriend.”

“Wave-”

“No, you don’t get to Wave me! Not right now. I’m entitled to be angry when my girlfriend forgets I exist.”

“You’re allowed to be as angry as you want, but trust me honey, I never forget I’m lucky enough that you’re my girlfriend.” As Waverly refuses to look at her she sighs. “Do you want me to go to hell?”

“Yes.” The room grows silent for a beat. “Not literally, but yes.” Waverly refuses to look at her, because she knows that if she does she’ll cry and she’s too angry to allow herself to do that in front of anyone, least of all Nicole right now.

“Fine, I’ll go.” Nicole sighs and looks at Waverly with a broken look in her eyes. She wants to say so much more, but she also knows Waverly won’t listen to her, not now. Best thing is to do what her girlfriend wants, allow her the space to cool down. So she does that, grabs her jacket on the way out and tries to ignore the stomach full of rocks she seems to have developed.

***

Judgement was still out on the new owner of Shorty’s. After Bobo’s “disappearance” Gus had been made a very generous offer of buying the bar back, but it hadn’t felt right. And for all the resistance Waverly had to begin with she gladly stood by Gus in this decision. The bar was important, but it wasn’t theirs anymore. Their legacy wasn’t in a sticky countertop or serving the usual watery beer to the regulars. So after a couple of weeks with closed doors, a confusing time for the entire town, Shorty’s had re-opened, but this time under the management of an older woman named Natalie. No one seemed to know much about her, not even her last name. What little they knew was her latest origin, which she made no secret about had been Vancouver. As to why she’d ended up settling in Purgatory the rumour mill had no problems fantasising up reasons for, on some days she was an ex-con looking for a new life, other’s a lottery winner, and on one particularly slow day she’d been a former Secret Agent hiding from the Russians. Natalie herself was in no way helpful as she answered each rumour with the same, “Sure, honey” and a smile that could mean absolutely anything you wanted it to mean. But at the end of the day, despite her mysterious background, Shorty’s had slowly gone back to being a bar patroned by everyone in town and not just the scum and those who didn’t know better. Which means Wednesday nights saw the usual crowd of regulars, semi-regulars and townsfolk unwinding.

Nicole steps through the doors with a determined look on her face. 

“What’s with the look, Officer?” Natalie herself asks as Nicole steps up to the counter. 

“Bad day.”

“I’d ask you about it, but I know you’re not going to tip enough to make it worth it.”

“Hey, I tip plenty!” Nicole shoots back mock offended.

“No, you don’t. Short-stack does, but not you and that look on your face makes me think she’s not out parking the car, so I’m saving my ears,” Natalie decides as she casually slings the towel over her shoulder in a gesture that makes it look as if she’s tended a bar her whole life, which who knows?- she might have. “What can I get you, the usual?”

“No, make it a tonic.”

Natalie raises a dark eyebrow. “Official visit? Do I need to make sure I’ve got my good glasses and my beautiful nose away from the counter?”

“Your glasses and nose should be fine, unofficial business.”

“But you let me know if things start up. I’d forgotten bar fights are accepted pastime amusement in small towns and I’m not getting deformed courtesy of one of these backwards cretins.”

“I’ll let you know when it’s time to pack up the good stuff,” she promises.

“Good. And next time, bring Shorty, I need my tips.”

“Fine,” Nicole says, rolls her eyes and bunches up the change stuffing it into the tip jar with a smile, earning herself a pleased nod from the barkeep. As she turns around the good humour drains out of her system when her eyes meets Claire’s. She realises that it’s not just Natalie that wishes Waverly was here, she does too. Which is stupid, because the whole reason she’s here in the first place is so that Waverly never needs to deal with Claire and her questions and manipulations. But if she had been, the hypothetical thought alone makes Nicole’s mood improve significantly, and it’s in that moment she realises that this discussion that she thought she was going to have with Claire it’s mooot. It’s the same revelation as earlier yesterday morning by the creek, Waverly does not need her to protect her. Claire isn’t a threat, she’s just mildly annoying baggage.

“I couldn’t have thought of that a little earlier,” she chastises herself under her breath, instantly developing an annoyance headache. “Fuck, lets just get this shit over with.”

***

Waverly pointedly refuses to think about Nicole, she’s reading about Pearl Johnson, she’s reading about Pearl Johnson so hard she tells herself, “Nicole who?”. It’s an obvious lie, but Waverly lets herself live it and continues taking notes on this Pearl individual. 

Peacemaker offered swift justice to a lot of people back in the day, but Pearl had been one of the few women that succumbed to it and the curse that followed. Not much seemed to be written about her, but as far as Waverly could piece together she’d been well deserved of the fate she landed. From what Waverly had found out she’d started her days as a school matron, but somewhere along the way taken to killing. But sources were scarce and the details next to non-existent, largely because that was not behaviour expected of a woman. There was a rather fanciful account of how Pearl who in most other texts had been described as a spinster had her sights set on Wyatt as he’d ridden into town and had lost her mind at his rejection, but it was hard to tell how much of that was the author’s romantic streak and how much of it was actual fact.

Waverly’s phone chimes and she looks over at it, reading the one brief message blinking back at her. 

“I love you” 

That’s it, all there is. And the lie breaks for Waverly and she starts crying, slow heavy tears. Anger and pms and insecurities all roll down her cheeks in fat tears that don’t seem to want to slow down. She doesn’t try to stop them either.

Eventually she types out her own reply, vision still blurred, but her thumbs find their spacing. It’s an equally simple reply.

“Come home?”

It’s answered instantly “Gimme 30”

She takes a deep breath and wipes her tears, not in frustration or even shame, but she’s done with them. They now need to stop. 

She gathers up her things and heads down into the kitchen, puts on a kettle and rummages around for some tea. While the water boils she rests her arms on the kitchen counter once more reading through the folder she’s got in front of her, the one she’s slowly building about the current case, about the spurred woman with her sights on Wyatt and the large number of men she gutted along the way. 

She quickly gets lost in the texts again and isn’t roused until she hears the door. She keeps her eyes on the notes in front of her, taking slow deep breaths through her nose, not moving. She can hear Nicole taking her jacket off, she can hear her come closer, she hears her stop. Without looking she knows she’s leaning against the doorframe, watching her with that expression that seemed to be all big brown eyes. 

“Hey,” Nicole finally greets, her voice low, tired, and manages to crack on the one syllable.

With a frown Waverly looks up and over. The picture looking back at her is not the one she imagined. Nicole’s eyes are tired, noticeably so, but not as noticeable as the cracked and bloodied lip, the angry swatches of blood on her white shirt or the already blacking bruising around her left eye. Waverly gasps at the image in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” Nicole says.

“For what?” Waverly asks, already next to her, her hand on Nicole’s jaw to get a better look at the bloody lip.

“Making you feel like an afterthought.”

Waverly keeps hold of her jaw and looks at her intently, studying the exhausted brown eyes, melting, always melting when they meet hers. “It’s okay. And I’m sorry I told you to go to hell.”

Nicole shrugs and tries to smile, but emits an “Ouch!” as the attempt at a smile pulls at her lip in a way that’s far from comfortable.

“Who did this?”

“Not sure, maybe Pete’s chair, or Claire’s elbow, or the back of Champ’s head.”

“What happened?” she asks and heads into the bathroom to get their first-aid kit, one that sees far too much action.

“Wednesday night at Shorty’s,” Nicole quips, once again wincing and whimpering “ow” as the lip cracks around another attempted smile.

Waverly gives her an unamused look when she steps back into the room “Sit down,” she tells her girlfriend and corrals her onto one of the kitchen chairs. Nicole follows her lead and slides down with a deep sigh, her shoulders falling and her eye-lids fluttering in a way that makes it clear she’s beyond exhausted. “I’m tired,” she says out loud.

“I can tell,” Waverly acknowledges stroking an errant lock of red hair out of her face. “Want to tell me what Wednesday night at Shorty’s entails?”

“You’ve worked there. You should know.” Her voice is light, low and teasing, her eyes tired yes, but also with a new gleam as Nicole is starting to relax and the weariness is washed out of her system by the familiarity.

Waverly grabs hold of Nicole’s chin again and as gently as she can dabs at the cut, trying to wipe away the dried and crusted blood. Nicole doesn’t say anything, but closes her eyes under the care of Waverly’s fingers on her face, trying to not wince too badly. “If I remember correctly that means someone grabs the wrong person’s ass or someone insults someone’s pick-up. Which is it?”

“Why pick one when you can have both?!” With eyes still closed she continues, “Champ broke up with his girlfriend-” she opens her eyes briefly to make eye contact with Waverly, pupils so wide her eyes almost look black in the dim lighting- “I can never remember what that girl is called.” She shrugs. 

Waverly throws the bloody cotton swab on the table and angles Nicole’s chin to get another look at her face, she huffs at the bruise and swelling already visible. “You’re going to have quite the shiner tomorrow.”

“I know,” Nicole sighs. “Today sucks.”

“Tomorrow will be better.” Waverly places on hand on Nicole’s shoulder and sits down in her lap, her girlfriend responds by wrapping her arms around her, resting the good side of her face on Waverly’s shoulder. “Now, what did Champ breaking up with Tessa Roberts have to do with anything?”

“Oh, that’s her name?” Nicole looks up in surprise. Waverly nods and silently encourages Nicole to go on with the story. “Oh, yeah. He was in there hitting on anyone, Champ was, he hit on Sara Millian.”

“That must have gone down well with Pete.”

“Almost as well as when he insulted Pete’s car.”

“So that’s when the shit hit your face?”

“No, not really, that was just the start. I was having drinks with Claire, trying to keep her away from here.”

“Why would you need to keep your Ex-girlfriend away?”

“Because she’s gotten it into her head that there’s a story to write about Purgatory, and you.” She looks at Waverly.

“Me?”

“You and your sister.”

“Why?”

Nicole lets her head fall back onto Waverly’s shoulder, resting her good cheek against the warm skin exposed as Waverly’s night shirt rode low.

“Something about Oprah,” she sighs.

“What does Oprah have to do with me and my sister?”

“I just want you to be safe,” Nicole finally admits.

Waverly entwines her fingers in Nicole’s hair, letting her thumb stroke the rim of her ear, gently placing a kiss on the side of her jaw. “Do you really think your Ex is going to make me feel unsafe?”

There is a pause that stretches on as Nicole’s tired mind tries to find the right words. “Before I came here she was the scariest thing I’d ever gone up against. If she gets in the mood she’ll ask questions and she’ll keep pushing until you feel so small you're scared of your own shadow.”

“Remember the goo? And the flesh eating cow epidemic? Or the thing that’s currently out there literally gutting people?”

“Point taken, but you shouldn’t underestimate Claire.”

“I won’t, love. Want to finish the story?” Waverly suggests.

“What story?”

“The one about how you ended up looking like an MMA fighter?”

“Oh, yeah. Well Champ grabbed the wrong ass, he grabbed Claire’s- she punched him in the face and then he fell back into Pete who spilled his drink and then it was like a pinball machine in there.”

“You know what, I really don’t miss Shorty’s.”

“What have you been up to?” Nicole asks and pulls her girlfriend closer in her arms.

“I think I found the Revenant we’re looking for,” Waverly says and nods in the direction of the open folder on the kitchen counter.

“You did?”

“Think so.”

“Show me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't move quick. But here we are. And more will happen. Just give me some sweet time.
> 
> If you like it, let me know. If you've got constructive criticism please have at me and help me improve future chapters. On here or on twitter @mechanizedmonke
> 
> Cheers for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are. Hats off to you for reading through all of it. I hope it's not too noticeable, but I'm sure there's more than one section that could benefit greatly from the loving touch of a beta reader. I want to continue this story, got 5 chapters in total planned, but unwritten. So if you're interested in being that loving beta for the rest of this and don't mind a sporadic writer- poke me on here or on twitter @mechanizedmonke
> 
> And in the meantime I'm sorry for the roughness of this, but hope you liked it nevertheless.


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